


Sweet Dreams of Holly and Ribbon

by echoesofstardust, lapetitemort20



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Virtue Moir RPF
Genre: 6am skates, Christmas Morning, F/M, Merry Christmas, Soft VM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:53:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21950761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoesofstardust/pseuds/echoesofstardust, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapetitemort20/pseuds/lapetitemort20
Summary: She can’t cry. It’s Christmas.But Christmas tends to make her want the most impossible of things.
Relationships: Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir/Tessa Virtue
Comments: 62
Kudos: 134





	Sweet Dreams of Holly and Ribbon

**Author's Note:**

> LPM - This collab is a dream come true for me. Echoes’ fics have always made me feel joy, hope, beauty and the joining of souls. Writing with her is no different. She is exactly as talented, beautiful and brilliant as her works. I hope you enjoy our Christmas gift to you!
> 
> Echoes – It’s been a blessing to work on this collab with LPM! Her talent with words to craft the most gorgeous of stories inspires me every single day, along with her unmatched ability to make you laugh and sob and see every possible beautiful thing in our universe. I hope you enjoy reading our Christmas fic as much as we loved writing it!

Christmas mornings will always be magical.

There’s something pure and sweet yet mischievous in the cold, crisp air—the kind that makes you believe in the most impossible of things. There’s a reason little kids sleep with one eye open after putting out the milk and the cookies on Christmas Eve, listening for the faint ring of sleigh bells and the patter of reindeer hooves on the roof. As Scott’s grown older, he’s learned to realise that Christmas mornings are like childhoods reclaimed; they make you believe that for a day, the things you’ve thought lost may not be lost after all.

“Hey, stranger,” a voice calls out from below him, and he looks down from his perch on his ladder where he’s hanging up Christmas lights to see the most familiar pair of green eyes. She’s holding a small box of Christmas ornaments in one hand and a tray of two coffees in the other.

He hangs up the last length of the lights that he needs to put up and makes his way down the ladder.

“Hey, T,” he greets, taking the box of ornaments and setting them down on one of the rungs. His hand hovers over the coffees and she twists the tray so his coffee is closest to him, a mix of mirth and fondness shining in her eyes.

He holds his arms out and she takes the invitation to hug him. She fits easily against him, the way it’s always felt like she has. They don’t fit like puzzle pieces or metal gears clicking harshly into place. Their bodies mould around each other, fingertips and handprints depressing the others’ skin like piano keys pressed gently, muffled sighs echoing softly like that piece of music you know off by heart. Some people will always remain etched in your veins and your bones.

Even if your forever is different from the one you expected.

When Tessa breathes with him, when the rise and fall of his chest is in time with hers, everything feels a lot easier. Eventually, she has to step back because that’s what’s expected—you don’t stay glued to your skating partner forever. It’s not that she ever wanted to, really. She’s always wanted to be someone who can stand and succeed on her own two feet.

Except some stubborn part of her will always want it, too. Craves the focus of a singular goal of rising to the zenith of their sport, choreographing and then executing the perfect skate, the quietness of their bubble where the only people that matter are him and her.

Everything she’s ever wanted has always contradicted. With him, or without. Independent, or intertwined.

She thinks they’ve got the balance down most days, these few years removed from retirement, yet some mornings she can’t describe how much she yearns for him, yearns skating with him. His cheek against hers. Her hand in his. Lungs breathing the same cold air. Feet following each other’s and bodies in mirrored lines.

It’s always a joy remembering what it’s like to skate with Scott but this morning, there’s an ache behind her eyes but she tamps it down with a smile. She can’t cry. It’s Christmas.

But Christmas tends to make her want the most impossible of things.

“Kiddo?” His warm hands cup her face. It both soothes and stokes the ache. _Are you okay?_ She easily understands his unspoken question.

"I'm fine," she blinks, looking around to regain her composure. She's fine, truly.

(The thing she's not fine with is a future where he's not here any more, not with her. But she hopes that inevitability is not for a while.)

She looks around in awe. "Wow, Scott. This place is going to look—" She tries to find a word big enough to convey what she wants but just settles on "—wonderful." It's clichéd but she means it and when she turns to look at Scott's proud smile it's hard to think that there could be a better word.

"Yeah?"

She nods. It will. All the Christmas lights will twinkle like fireflies of early summer evenings, and the various Christmas trees stand proudly, branches bowing from the weight of the baubles and ornaments and tinsel. Sprigs of mistletoe wink mischievously in hidden niches, and the booths are all set up to look like a Christmas village.

"Is there anything else I can do to help?"

"Hmmm," he turns back to the ladder where he'd put down the box of ornaments she'd brought. "Help me put these on one of the trees?"

She looks at all the very full trees around them. "Which one?"

He chuckles as he leads her by her elbow to one that's hidden away and not easily seen. "This one."

He looks at the box closer and gives a gasp of delight. "Tess! These are all skating themed!"

"Yeah, thought it was fitting."

He's quickly torn open the lid, pulling out a child figurine in a puffy jacket and skates strapped onto his feet, hands held out in a clear attempt to balance.

There's a variety of different ornaments that come in the box, and she and Scott take turns taking one out to hang on the tree, exchanging little bits of shared memories that each figurine awakens.

She pulls out a pair of white skates as he pulls out a pair of black.

"Surely these have to hang side by side," he says as he wraps an arm around her shoulder. She smiles in agreement, leaning into his warmth.

He looks at the two ornaments hanging side by side, to the ice, and back at her. "Hey," he squeezes her shoulder, "do you…want to skate?"

"Like old times?"

He looks at her and he knows as sure as his shadow and the shape of her hand that they’re thinking of the exact same thing. Some ten thousand mornings in gritty, grubby ice rinks before the moon had kissed the horizon goodbye, skating hand in hand.

“Just like old times, kiddo.” He smiles, the one he knows with every inch of his beating heart is just for her. He could love a thousand other people and he knows he’ll never love anyone the way he loves Tessa. How many people have insisted that they know the nature of what they are to each other? How could they know when neither him nor her even understand it themselves?

His love for her cannot be contained in the lines that make up those four letters. It’s hidden in a thousand ice rinks all over this planet, has seeped into the frozen surfaces, tucked between the boards, whispered into the walls.

He breathes in and she sighs, like their lungs are shared, like every piece of them that’s been both their own but also the other’s.

He helps her with her skates, a twinkle in his eyes so much like the stars, the one that’s always been there ever since they were seven and nine. He holds his hand out and she takes it and the moment the blades of their skates touch the ice will always be pure magic. It feels both old and new, familiar and novel, makes her feel both giddy and like she’s come home.

They stroke around the perimeter first in smooth, matching lines, hands clasped tightly. Being on the ice with Scott has always been her safe place; the place where she could say and think and feel anything. Even the things she didn’t think was right for her to feel.

She closes her eyes, breathes in the cold air and focuses on the way his hand feels in hers. Again, the thought that there will be a time when this will be the last time creeps into her mind, and it makes an ache that makes her hold onto him tighter.

He holds on just as tight and she knows he’s thinking about the same thing.

There are no words exchanged when they shift smoothly into a simple dance hold, when they begin to waltz and she’s looking at him and he’s looking at her and she wishes on the stars that twinkle in the depths of his eyes that this could last forever.

The way their blades cut through the ice is like the fates cutting through the threads of time—carving out this place that’s neither past nor present nor future, a place that’s theirs and theirs alone.

At least for a little while.

Their movements slow down around centre ice. His hands fall to the curve of her waist, her own finding their place at the nape of his neck, just beneath his hair, and on his chest, just over his heart.

Their foreheads touch by the next breath and the next blink, their bodies—their souls—colliding like magnets or comets or planets, and he’s impossibly, impossibly close. She could reach up and lean in, and she’s minutely aware of him doing almost the same, and her eyes are closed and her name is on his lips and—

“Tessa! Scott!” A voice calls out, shattering the moment. They jump apart, chests heaving.

She shakes her head like she’s waking up from a vivid, wonderful dream.

“Guess we’re needed,” he tells her, holding out his hand.

“Guess we are,” she smiles, taking his hand in hers.

***

The event is in full swing. Scott’s decorations look just as Tessa had predicted — wonderful, against the backdrop of the Christmas trees and holiday wreaths dotting the rink. There’s music, the fanfare of big band trumpets and catchy beats of familiar holiday tunes sung in smooth dulcet voices.

There are also balloons — red, silver and gold to go with the Christmas theme, the excited cries of skating children chaperoned by their equally reluctant parents, and all manner of games are already being played.

The Christmas food village surrounding the rink is beginning to emanate delicious scents too - roasted chestnuts, cinnamon rolls, hot chocolate with marshmallows, toffee apples, pork sausages with lingonberry jam, mince pies, maple syrup ham, gingerbread cookies, even freshly ground and roasted coffee. It’s a seasonal smell that could only come from celebrating Christmas at home, the crunch of the crisp snow outside a wonderful juxtaposition to the toasty, raucous warmth indoors.

Tessa relishes the buzz in the air, a reminder of the innocence and freedom of skating carnivals in days past. She can’t believe where the wings of time have carried her, those 25 years whirling by in a dizzying blink of an eye.

There had been days that had felt all too long, her heart aching with heaviness, legs burning from pain, and tears welling up like unwanted diamonds that refused to fall for fear of speaking the truth of the want in her heart, revealing the broken pieces of her soul. But there were also days of gold, where the high of being at the top of the world was everything she had ever dreamed of, surpassing the need to love and be loved in return.

Those days were unmatched in their giddy happiness, where the two of them felt free.

But truth be told, her favourite moments had always been during the quiet hush of dawn in a grubby rink where it was only ever Scott and her. Much like this Christmas morning. She realises just how much she misses it, and she feels grateful for the stolen minutes they can get together. For the second time of the day she finds herself biting back tears.

Tessa is manning one of the food booths, and while she’s not known for her cooking skills - in fact, she’s infamous for the lack of it - she sure as heck can hawk off gourmet snacks as if her life depended on it. She takes a sip from the mulled wine that’s been offered to her by someone from the neighbouring booth. It’s delicious, the deep, dark red wine swirling in her mouth, a heady, full-bodied mix with the tangy taste of oranges, the piquant spices of star anise, cloves, cinnamon sticks and just a hint of sweetness from the brown sugar.

Sugar and spice, and everything nice. It tastes of Christmas. It also reminds her of them, or at least how they used to be.

Virtue Moir. Intense and powerful, yet distinct and delicate.

Never mind that it’s only ten in the morning. She’s going to need a little to warm her body that’s starting to shiver from being too long in the chill of the rink without being wrapped up in the cocoon of Scott’s heat. But it’ll also help her calm her nerves in facing the media spotlight, even if it is in aid of the Brain Tumour Foundation that Scott and herself have organised for the community. It’s been so long since they’ve been at the forefront of attention, yet the interest in them has in no way waned.

She spies the booth that Scott is in charge of. Of course it would have a queue that rivals hers. Whilst she’s shilling fancy Christmas-themed vegan nibbles within every inch of her life, he’s absolutely killing it with the Kissing Booth.

He’s selling kisses. Because, of course he is.

Who wouldn’t pay good money for Scott Moir’s gentle lips upon theirs? It was her idea after all, but still she chews down on the inside of her cheek and a feeling that bubbles up from deep inside her, one that feels a lot like jealousy. She knows that they’re just fun, innocent pecks on the cheek anyway, and all for a good cause.

She thinks back on the days when their kisses were chaste, never crossing the line, yet stoking the fire of a thousand blazing suns. The ones that always started off in the abstract, pushing and pulling together like a tempest of thunder and lightning - but it was always just the story they were trying to tell - yet always ending a little like it might have bled into reality, if only they would allow it.

She rolls her eyes a little, observing how much in his element he is. There’s nothing Scott loves more than being in the spotlight, except for when he needs the downtime, in which case he runs in entirely the opposite direction.

That’s always been his modus operandi.

All or nothing.

She should know, she’s been on the receiving end of this spectrum ever since she can remember.

They’ve carved out a fragile balance with respect to their skating and involvement in the skating world since their retirement. She had said, tearfully and publicly at the end of their highly decorated career, that as long as she wore skates she would always need him. So they’ve been careful to craft a path where it was possible to work together without falling back on past attachments and negative dependency patterns. It hasn’t always been easy, but the countless years of cultivating respect and consideration for the other hasn’t gone to waste.

They only ever wear skates together when it’s something very, very important. Anniversary skates were one such event. And this was another.

Choosing a charity hadn’t been easy. There were so many that needed patronage and public support but they knew that the Brain Tumour Foundation was the right one because of Scott’s godson’s condition. He was only 8 weeks old when he was diagnosed with a benign tumour and had undergone a 7-hour surgery to remove the four centimetre mass. The little tyke had spent the first two years of his life in and out of hospitals due to MRI scans, neurological observations and epileptic seizure management, but fast forward three years later and no one would ever have been able to tell he’d been sick a day in his life. He was one of the lucky ones.

What they hope with their event is to raise awareness to the plight of brain tumour, injury and trauma, especially for kids. But the real heroes are the children survivors that will be coming by from the London Children’s Hospital for an afternoon of fun and games.

When they’re interviewed later by the local paper and also CBC, Tessa answers most of the questions, although both of them avoid answering anything about their relationship status. She’s the far more media savvy one of them in any case, because he’s never been able to be trusted to not voice out his emotions. It’s funny how their role reversals have shaped them throughout the years. Where Scott was once the talkative leader, Tessa was content to bask in his charisma.

Now, even though their collective appearances are few and far between, she takes comfort in how his constant support for her has allowed her wings to unfurl. It’s scary to step off the precipice of everything she knows, but it’s her moment to shine, with or without him.

It’s high time to illuminate her own star.

***

“Kiddos! Who’s ready to play some skating games?” Scott claps his hands together in the middle of the rink. Excited gasps and giggles echo throughout the rink, together with the swish of numerous tiny skates as all the kids rush over to where Scott’s standing. A little boy with too much momentum almost crashes into Scott, but luckily Scott’s able to catch him. Adorably, he gives Scott the biggest hug, and Tessa watches as the biggest smile spreads on Scott’s face as he hugs the little boy back.

He’s always been good with kids, and they’ve always adored him back. She’s always thought he was going to be a good dad.

They’d come up with a whole list of games to play, ones they remember playing when they were little in ice rinks like this. They’ve had to grow up a lot faster than most kids with all their goals to reach the top of their sport but Tessa loves seeing the happiness on all these kids’ faces because they’re on the ice purely for fun.

She hopes they never lose that. She knows that these kids, as survivors of brain tumours, have gone through more hardship and pain and uncertainty than any kid should have to face at their age. She hopes that moments of joy, like these moments that she and Scott want to give them through this event, will be the moments that they remember.

A pair of two little girls, holding onto each other’s hands tightly, linger shyly at the edge of the crowded group. Tessa skates over to them.  
  
“Hey there,” she says quietly, offering them her brightest smile, “I’m Tessa. What are your names?”

“I’m Holly,” the girl with bright blue eyes and a puffy pink coat answers first. Her friend doesn’t say anything at first, looking down at her skates but eventually whispers, “Mariana.”

“I think your names are very pretty,” she says, her heart warming when both girls smile in response. “What do you think about playing the games?”

“It’s very—loud.” Mariana whispers.

“Is it okay to not join in the games, Tessa?” Holly asks her, clearly concerned about her friend.

“Of course. The most important thing is that you girls are comfortable and have a good time today. Is it okay for me to stay with you?”

They nod and slowly open up more to Tessa, as she asks them about their holiday plans, favourite Christmas foods, what they hope to get from Santa. The two girls hold onto her hand as they skate around and their giggles are among the sweetest sounds that Tessa’s ever heard.

It’s a little later when Mariana tugs on Tessa’s sleeve. “Is being on the ice always so scary?” Mariana whispers, so softly that Tessa barely catches it.

Tessa crouches in front of her. “Well, I find that it’s not so scary when I’m holding onto someone else’s hand.” Her eyes find Scott, who’s still in the middle of the pack of kids. She smiles. “It’s not so scary when you were skating with me, right? Or with Holly?”

Mariana shakes her head, her dark curls bouncing with the motion. “It’s fun.” She smiles shyly, looking over to where the other kids were still playing.

“You feel ready to join in with the games?”

“Yeah.” This time, it’s Mariana who takes her hand and leads it to where Scott’s announcing the next game.

“Are you all ready to play ‘Duck Duck Goose’? Including you, T,” he winks at her when he passes by.

“Oh, I’m ready, Moir,” she fires back. Holly and Mariana stand on one side of her as the rest of the group settles into a loose circle.

Scott starts the game off, and the energy of the kids just keep on increasing as each round passes. One of them tags Tessa and she pretends to chase him around the circle, exaggeratedly huffing and puffing when he makes it back to her original spot.

“Duck. Duck. Duck,” she says as she pats each kid’s head around the circle. “Duck, duck, duck.”

Until it’s Scott. “Goose.”

She takes off around the circle, aware of the sound of Scott’s skates as he chases after her. She squeals as he catches her around her waist, lifting her off the ground. “Scott!”

He puts her down and she spins around. She catches the look in his eyes and she knows exactly what he’s thinking. They’re hand in hand and skating to get enough momentum, him getting into position and her balancing on his thigh and his back, arms spread wide one of their signature lifts: the Goose.

It’s still as exhilarating as the first time. She feels like she could fly. All the kids clap and stare in awe and it’s a feeling that’s just as empowering as an Olympic gold medal.

She’s careful to dismount because they’re not Olympic-level athletes anymore but it’s Scott and he wouldn’t let her get hurt.

She’s still laughing and giddy as he straightens back up, and her happiness is perfectly mirrored on his face. Nothing can compare to the joy she has skating with Scott.

Eventually, it becomes time for all the kids to go home after a long day, and she and Scott are up at the front of everyone gathered to thank them all for coming. Scott’s just about to begin talking when a few of the kids gasp and point above them.

She and Scott look at each other in confusion until shy, little Mariana pipes up, giggling, “Mistletoe!”

They look up and the sprig is right there, mocking them.

“It’s Christmas tradition, Virtch. You don’t wanna disappoint them, right?” He smiles cheekily at her. She rolls her eyes. This man, seriously.

He takes her hands in his and presses a chaste kiss to her knuckles, giving her her favourite smile of his as he looks at her over them.

Except their family (probably led by their siblings) decides at that moment to boo. “That’s not a kiss, Scotty!” It sounds a lot like it’s Joe Moir.

Scott narrows his eyes at their general direction and everyone laughs. He tugs softly on her hands and she follows until she’s in his arms. It’s like the ending of every Hallmark Christmas movie, where he’s got an arm around her waist and she’s got a hand over his heart and his hand over hers.

“Are you ready, T?”

“Just kiss me, Scott.” She rises on her tiptoes to capture his lips, and she feels him smile as his thumb rubs over her wedding band—the one that matches the one on his left hand.

They break apart to whoops and cheers and wolf whistles, even as some of the kids cover their eyes and make ‘ewww’ sounds.

“Hey,” Scott says, getting her attention. He kisses her hands again, smiles her favourite smile. “I love you.”

She laughs and it does sound like she’s about to cry, but she can’t cry. It’s Christmas. It’s Christmas with Scott, in this wonderful life they’re building together. “I love you, too.”

It’s been, hands-down, a successful and spectacular day.

***  
  


“What?” he asks softly, as they’re packing up the last of the ornaments decorating the rink. It’s been a long day and they’re both bone tired, but there’s something about giving back to their community and doing something that’s bigger than the both of them that fills their hearts with a joy that’s much too large to contain.

It’s just the two of them now, with the remaining volunteers leaving not 15 minutes ago after being thanked profusely and waved off by Scott. After a full day filled with a cacophony of carols, cheer and children, it’s a relief just to sit in the quiet of the rink, soaking up the impact of their charity event.

They’ve managed to raise over $50,000 in donations from the day alone, which is something to be proud of when she thinks about how many kids they’ll be able to help.

It’s been a successful day in all, but the extrovert in Tessa who loves the limelight and ability to use their platform for good now gives way to the introvert in her who needs the time to contemplate it all.

She’s been watching him in silence for the last little while; admiring the way his arms carry brown cardboard boxes, paying attention to how his hands run over candy cane ribbons in the evergreen wreaths, feasting on the manner in which his fingers thoughtfully touch the cracked wooden booths.

They’re comforting, these arms.

The ones which have always carried her safely, never letting her down. The hands which have held hers for a quarter of a century, and as they pledged into each other’s eyes, hands held, hearts joined and rings exchanged, for a lifetime and more. The fingers which have always found hers, no matter which point of life they were at, somehow able to convey a million different words with a mere touch and hook of their special hold.

These hands were hers to keep. Forever. Just like his heart.

“Nothing…” she whispers, her voice nearly breaking at the overwhelming emotion she feels. She allows herself to cry now. It’s a singular tear that rolls down her cheek, but it’s one that’s borne by happiness.

He reaches out to catch the single drop with a finger. He brings it to his lips to swallow the salt of her soulful sentiment. It’s a thing he’s taken to doing when she cries, promising her that whatever pain she feels he would share too, as long as he could help her bear it.

“Nothing? Or everything?” He knows her too well. She wouldn’t want it any other way.

“Your hands,” she shrugs, catching both of them with her own, intertwining her fingers with his. This time it’s her turn to graze her lips adoringly against his knuckles.

“Oh yeah? What about them?”

“I was thinking about how strong they are. How emotive,” she punctuates between kissing each knuckle.

“You always did have a thing for them, Virtch. You thought I never noticed, but I did,” he laughs a low, throaty chuckle.

“I knew you knew. It was kind of obvious on my part. I was just waiting for you to figure out you loved me too,” she teases.

“I always did have to catch up to you, babe,” he wrangles his fingers out of her clasp and encircles his arms around her waist, his forehead touching hers. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

They’re alone now, so they don’t have to be as guarded. He kisses her sweetly, covering her lips with his own, tender and gentle.

It’s taken him long enough, but now that he’s there, he’ll never stop showing her how much he loves her (and he hopes she’ll never stop letting him). He deepens their kiss, one hand cupping at her jaw, the other pressing a thumb lightly into the hollow between her collarbones. She reciprocates by running her fingers through his roguish curls, scratching deliciously at his scalp. He lets out a soft sound, he’s putty in her hands whenever she does that.

“I was also thinking about what a wonderful father you’d make,” she sighs against his mouth when they come up for air.

He laughs again, the sound a soothing balm to her heart. “Is this your way of coming on to me, T? Because wow, am I ever turned on!”

“Seriously, you were so good with the children earlier. You always have been. They were crazy for you.” If ever there were an emoji to describe the way she’s looking at him, it would be the heart eyes one.

“And what about you? Are you crazy for me?” he asks, a teasing timbre in his tone.

“Since you’re asking, yes, seeing you with kids makes me want to jump you something insane,” she tries to suppress a giggle.

He stares at her a long while, eyes dark, filled with wonder and wanting. He shakes his head, how he got so lucky he’ll never know.

He turns serious now. “Everyone thinks I’m great with them, but I for one know that you’re amazing with children too,” he tips her chin up with the slide of a finger, recalling how she’d been with the two little girls earlier in the day. “You’re going to be a fantastic mother to our kiddos.”

She stands on her tiptoes (they’ve always been the perfect height for this) in order to reach his mouth with her own. She had been so hesitant about becoming a mother before but she’s never been surer about anything else with him.

They share a kiss, then two, and soon they’re breathing hard, a blooming, burning desire suddenly inflamed by the talk of children and a future filled with ringing laughter.

“Kiddos, huh?” she raises her eyebrows at the plural.

He nods vehemently. God, he wants her. He always has, but spent so much time and energy denying it. Now that he doesn’t have to, he’s dedicated to proving just how much.

“In that case, I think you’d better hurry up and take me home, Moir,” she whispers urgently into his mouth, pressing her body against the one she knows so well, the one which in turn has been formed over the years by the undulation of her soft curves and the stretch of her taut muscles.

As it turns out, clearing up the rink can wait till tomorrow and he puts those hands she’s so weak for to good use the moment they get home.

She breathes in as she sinks into his arms and he sighs, like the breath they share is the only thing that keeps them alive. They need each other now, as they always have, but the need is tempered by a determined choice of want, not a desperate dependency.

She helps rid him of his jacket, then his garish Christmas sweater, with a glint in her eye, one that knows what she wants, and how she’s going to get it. She holds out her hand and he takes it in the knowledge that he will follow wherever she leads, the way he’s always done, because she’s pure magic and finally, after all these years, she’s well and truly his, and he is hers.

She’s home and this is the steady, unwavering peace he’s always yearned for, except it was right in front of him the entire time.

They move rhythmically in a sort of sensual dance to their bedroom, disposing themselves of one article of clothing at a time without breaking the sinuous interlacing of their clasped hands. Even now, their lines are unintentionally exquisite, something begot by their shared instinct for grace and beauty. This here, is where he feels the most secure.

He closes his eyes, breathes in the warmth of her entire being and pays attention to how she feels naked under his fervent fingers. There was a time when he was willing to let her go, pushed away from her in fact, so he could try to escape the tendrils of her love because he mistook it for obligation and exigency.

What he couldn't have known then was that it has only ever been his soul recognising its other half, that there was an inexorable pull there that could never be denied. They would find each other in every lifetime.

He grasps on to her unyieldingly, knowing she’s thinking of the very same thing when she tells him she loves him, every day, always, in every life.

There are no words uttered after that as he consumes her with kisses, his mouth and hands travelling down the smooth lines of her body to her aching center. He’s looking at her and she’s looking at him like they were made for each other, which in every aspect, they were.

The way their bodies collide is like the intricate weaving of the fabric of their life — twisting, lacing, entwining, binding. They are tethered to each other in a way that is eternal, a way that’s theirs and theirs alone.

Their movements slow as his tongue brings her torturously to the brink of ecstasy. Her hands grip at the back of his head, his own finding their place on the creamy juncture where her thighs meet her pelvis, his fingers deep inside her and the gold band of his wedding ring slathered in the heat of her slick desire.

His breath is hot against her naked sex, her body —her soul— about to cascade into the aether, because she’s impossibly, impossibly close. He’s taken a moment to watch her, because she’s a vision like this, halfway to paradise, all he has to do is place his lust-smeared mouth on her, and her eyes will close and his name will be on her lips and —

Someone once likened them to twin souls. Ones that needed to be spliced apart in order to find themselves and come back to each other with a renewed sense of respect and knowledge of true belonging.

They weren’t wrong.

For so long ice dance was the thing that bound them together. It was impossible to discern if it was their superiority in the sport or their mutual reverence that was the glue that compelled them into an unnatural closeness.

Or was it the unrequited love and not being able to quit the other? Perhaps it was a combination of all those elements. Whatever the case, retirement had revealed itself to be a boon. When they hung up their skates, they were just Tessa and Scott.

No ice. No subtext. No acting.

Yes, the smooth, glacial expanse of so many ice rinks around the world had been their safe harbour, free from the storms of reality and heartbreak. But it had also been a place where they had laid their hearts bare and hidden everything they felt in plain sight.

After 22 years, they were finally able to open up that side of their life, to see where it took them.

But now, as he holds her with a desperate grip through her shuddering climax, catching her as she falls apart against his ravishing mouth, it’s as clear as daylight where they belong.

Together, always together.

He parts her legs with his knees then, entering her with an excruciating slowness and stunning certainty to unite their bodies in the way they’ve always been made to. He’s measured at first, feeling her every surge and throb clenching around his hard length. His rhythm builds in time with hers, rippling, slacking, escalating and finally intensifying into a pulsing cadence that brings them both to a crescendo of loud groans and muffled cries of impassioned pleasure.

He is her sun, and she his moon. Neither more important than the other, their twin souls finding a way to exist according to the laws of planetary motion. Both prevailing in their own separate planes, but always connected, their love, and light, a reflection of, and a corresponding part to the other.

“Merry Christmas, T,” he whispers into her ear, nuzzling his nose against her neck as they drift off into a dreamless slumber on the wings of a prayer.

There is no longer the need for dreams, for every single one of hers has come true, including the one that plants itself deep inside her, ready to be introduced into the world months later.

It looks like Christmas evenings are even more magical after all.

**Author's Note:**

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